Here's what Facebook employees need to do to earn a performance bonus

Facebook shifts focus from growth at all costs. It will now incentivise employees who can make a greater impact on the company and society at large. 

Each day brings a new development at Facebook, one of the most storied companies of our time.

The social networking platform turned 15 on Tuesday, and announced a revamp of its performance review system. Now on, Facebook employees would be rated based on their efforts in resolving “major social issues” facing the company and the internet ecosystem at large. Until now, employee bonuses were linked to their performance on user and revenue growth fronts.

This comes after a year of turbulence for Facebook when it came under immense flak for its “growth-at-all costs” mentality that caused it to manipulate elections, compromise user data, spread misinformation, allow hate and abuse, and much more.

In addition to progress made on social issues, the company would also be reviewing employees based on their ability to “build new experiences that improve people’s lives”, assist small businesses that rely on its platform, and communicate more “transparently”. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is believed to have outlined the company’s new plans in a recent investor call.

“So in a nutshell: Facebook is moving from a focus on growth, to a focus on change,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying.

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The next step

However, it is not clear how the social networking firm intends to monitor these metrics.

“Over the past two years, we’ve fundamentally changed how we run Facebook. This particular change is designed to ensure that we are incentivising people to keep making progress on the major social issues facing the internet and our company,” Facebook said in a statement.

The company's current workforce is 36,000-strong and is spread across offices in US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South Korea and Australia. Despite the recent scandals and controversies, the social media giant continues to grow its user base, and had 1.52 billion daily active users on the platform at the end of 2018.

“Let the numbers stand for themselves. We’re growing in all regions,” Dave Wehner, Facebook’s chief financial officer, stated at the Q4 earnings call.

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